All That Is Seen and Unseen is an interdisciplinary, installation opera which investigates the multifarious effects of technology on our collective human consciousness. The work confronts the dangerous erosion of truth and trust in our society, which is rapidly intensifying due to advancing A.I., computational propaganda, deepfakes, and other tools that manipulate and obscure reality. Through video, music, custom programming, and performance, the artists explore machine learning by creating a performative neural network in real time, imagining a quasi-supernatural invasion of malfunctioning and overreaching intelligent machines, where nothing is as it appears and no one is safe.
The goal of the work is to explore machine learning by creating a performative neural network in real time, using image, sound and movement to elucidate algorithmic systems which influence our daily lives and experiences. We strive to create a work that builds in complexity through time, allowing the system to ‘learn’, revealing variable pathways with the potential to reach a different conclusion/outcome with every performance.
The full production of All That Is Seen will be set in an immersive, transmutable, electronic space, inhabited by 3-5 performers who conjure a multifaceted narrative through song, choreographed actions, spoken (and sung) texts, codes, and looped interruptions. Throughout the piece, customized technology will be used as a transformative device to ‘live mix’ and alter human appearances (both voice and body) as well as the settings they inhabit, causing viewers to question their assumptions, beliefs and understanding of reality. As the performers fluidly move between genders and personas, notions of identity, authenticity, equity, social power structures and authority are questioned and subverted.
An ontological investigation into the nature of deception and truth, All That Is Seen explores the current, damaged state of our global online discourse, imagining a quasi-supernatural invasion of malfunctioning and overreaching intelligent machines, where nothing is as it appears and no one is safe.
